Doncaster RLFC warned against complacency ahead of clash with basement boys London Skolars

The second-placed Dons will start firm favourites to both pick up a win and improve their points difference but head coach Richard Horne has warned against complacency ahead of the game, which will be preceded by another Masters’ competition.

“I don’t want the players to play a different way to what they have been playing just because of the fact that we are playing Skolars.” said Horne. “Because that is when errors begin to creep in and if the performance isn’t there you can come unstuck.”

Reflecting on the 26-12 defeat away to leaders Dewsbury, Horne said: “We were our own worst enemy at times with the errors we made and the cheap relieving penalties. You can’t do that against the top sides.

“We had something like a 50 per cent completion rate in the second half and that’s not what you want away to the league leaders.

“We were on top at the start of the second half but we failed to capitalise on our extra-man - and fair credit to them I thought they handled that period really well – when they had a man sin-binned.

“They are a quality outfit and I think they just showed a bit more composure than we did on the day. We looked a little bit frantic when we got into good positions and we didn’t build enough pressure or make them work hard enough as we had talked about doing.

“Our halves got a little bit impatient and tried to force a couple of passes and we looked a little bit disjointed at times which hasn’t been us all season and that was a little bit disappointing; but I can’t knock their efforts.

“I thought that we defended well apart from a 10-minute blip in the last quarter where we switched off and they scored three tries.

“Probably the main difference between the two sides on the day was that they were more clinical when it came to taking their chances whereas we had two pull-backs for forward passes which came a huge moments in the game and which would have left them chasing the game, not us.

“But I’ve no complaints. They are a great outfit, well drilled and well coached and they defended really well and put us under pressure from kicks from which they scored three of their tries.”